


Quoth the Dark One

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff in the Dark Castle (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 18:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20140210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: He wasn't being silly. He was the Dark One. He didn't do silly.





	Quoth the Dark One

“Rumple what in the world are you doing?”

Belle had gotten used to finding Rumple in all manner of places. Privately she’d thought he was a bit like a cat in that respect, always able to get into surprising places, and frequently for no other reason than he could. She’d found him sat cross-legged on her kitchen table; perched precariously on the back of a chair; crawling up the front of the bookcases in the library; she’d even caught him sliding down the banisters once or twice, but never had she found him like this.

Rumple’s mad frizz brushed the grass as he tried to look down his nose at her. Since he was upside down hanging from her washing line by his bare feet he was in fact looking up her nose. She twisted her head as she walked around him, trying to get a view of his face the right way up.

“I was thinking.”

Belle waited for a moment, in case that was the half sentence it sounded. When Rumple offered her nothing else she asked; “Thinking about what?”

“Just hanging around thinking.”

In the trees around the clearing the crows cawed and sniggered. This was rather funny, but there was work to be done. Belle put her hands on her hips in an attempt to mask her smile with a display of frustration.

“Can you hang around somewhere else? I need this line for your shirts.”

Rumple twisted a little, Belle watched a dozen more grass seeds get tangled in his hair, maybe she could gently persuade him into letting her brush them out tonight, before they got so tangled into his curls that she had to drag him into the lake with the soap. Finally he huffed and flapped his hands at her until she’d taken several steps back. There was a glimmer in his eye as he made sure that he had her full attention before he tense his stomach muscles and curled up the length of his own body, before he performed a flick that twisted his body into the air. He landed feather-light on the wash line and strolled it’s length as easily as if it had been solid ground. The double somersault from the pole at the end of the line into his boots was pure showing-off. He turned on the balls of his feet and gave Belle a dramatic bow.

Belle’s eyebrow was raised at his antics, but she provided the polite applause he was waiting for. Now it was her turn to flap her hands at him to shoo him away; “Go, I need to peg the washing to the line, else I’ll have no time to make dinner.”

Rumple gave her a bow with so many flourishes that it would put the Hatter to shame and vanished in a swirl of ruddy smoke.

She’d got three shirts pegged to the line before the raven she knew as Edgar swooped down from the trees and landed on the edge of her wash basket.

“Afternoon Edgar.”

“Wotcha Belle. He tripped and got his feet tangled.”

Belle giggled; “Of course he did, the dismount was amazing though.”

Edgar scratched his long black beak with his claw and shrugged; “Yeah, but he used magic.”

Belle clipped the last peg on to the shirt and turned a bland face to Edgar; “He is the Dark One.”

Inside the castle Rumple heard that dratted raven and his little maid giggling. He rolled his eyes and started his wheel spinning. Once again he told himself that he wouldn’t let himself be goaded into a dare by a damn bird.


End file.
